


You gotta know

by MMXIII



Series: Brooklyn Boys [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America: The First Avenger, Established Relationship, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Skinny!Steve, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-11 00:08:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2045415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMXIII/pseuds/MMXIII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a long day Bucky's frustrated about the way things are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You gotta know

**Author's Note:**

> So this just happened, all quick and unintended like, so I hope it's alright because these two make me smile :')
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> [Update 19/08/14: 1000 hits... I...gee uh... thank you very much!! :')]

 

 

They’re walking back from the docks late, sun setting red in the sky, heels dragging long shadows behind them, and sweating like crazy when Bucky blurts it out like it’s been bothering him all day. _My sister’s getting married_ , he says, sorta sideways, like it’s not exactly what he wanted to say, like it’s meant to mean something else. Steve thinks _maybe he’s just tired_ , shoots him a sideways grin, and deals him a soft punch on the arm to ease the strange look on his face.

‘Buck that’s great’ he says warmly, but Bucky isn’t smiling. He just keeps striding along, staring at the sidewalk like it’s gonna serve up the answers to life’s big questions. _Probably been thinking too much_ Steve reckons.

     ‘Hey!’ says Steve, with a half-smile on his face, ‘Hey, what’s up, you asshole? Ain’t you supposed to be pleased?’

‘I am. It’s just-’, Bucky looks up looking all closed-off and sighs heavily, hands in his pockets like a schoolboy. It reminds Steve of Bucky at thirteen, all loose and proud and grinning broadly with knees so dirty you just knew without looking that the spaces between his toes were black as hell.

‘I don’t know, Steve. I’ve been thinking, and I just wish- y’know I…’. Steve frowns faintly.

    ‘What are you talking about, Buck?’

‘It’s just- it’s so easy for some folks, right? I mean, say I liked a gal-’

Steve thinks he knows where this is going, but Bucky’s in a strange mood so he runs with it.

‘Just one, Buck?’ he quips, thinking of all those times he can remember Bucky having at least two beautiful girls on each arm. Bucky ignores him though, and continues in earnest as they cross a quiet street a few blocks over from where they live.

‘I could marry her-’

                ‘If she’d have you, you jerk’

‘Yeah, yeah. If she’d have me’, Bucky scuffs his soles in frustration, ‘If I liked a _gal’_ he starts up again, ‘everyone four blocks over would say _gee isn’t that swell, isn’t that nice_ , me ‘n her being so sweet on each other that we wanna get married ‘n all.’

He slows, having realised that Steve’s struggling to keep up, then continues.

‘Even if we weren’t married-’

    ‘You and this imaginary dame?’

Bucky makes an impatient gesture. ‘Yeah me and this dame. Even if we weren’t married- like next door, everybody knows they ain’t but nobody gives ‘em any trouble…’

Steve waits but Bucky doesn’t seem to know how to go on.

     ‘What’s wrong Buck?’

Bucky bites his lip, and Steve can feel the anxiety rolling right off him as they round the corner of 4th and make for their street. Bucky’s rarely anxious unless Steve’s getting the bujeezus smacked out of him by some thug five times his size. It’s making Steve nervous.

‘I just wish we could- y’know- that things weren’t- that it wasn’t-’

     ‘Buck I-’ Steve starts, beginning to understand _exactly_ where this is going, but Bucky cuts him off.

‘We could live right next to each other? Is that what you’re gonna say, Steve? Right next door all our lives with a girl each and a couple a kids between us?’

     ‘Actually, I was gonna say maybe we should talk about this inside’ says Steve tersely, ‘nobody talks about their private business in the middle of the street, Buck’

But Bucky keeps on going, too caught up in whatever he’s feeling to keep it in. Even his fingers are twitching in agitation as he runs a hand through his hair.

‘Come on, Stevie, you gotta know’ he says turning his head to look Steve right in the eye, ‘you gotta know how much, right?’

For a second Steve is blindsided by the desperation in Bucky’s voice.

     ‘Bucky _stop_ ’ he says even though something in his chest aches to say it, ‘ _not here’_. He’s feeling that familiar twinge of fear that makes him look over his shoulder nervously as Bucky sets a foot on the stairs to their building. ‘Someone might h-’

‘Why’s it gotta be a secret, Steve’

     ‘That’s just how it is, Buck’, Steve finds it hard to keep the frustration out of his voice, ‘ _you know that_ , everybody knows that’.

There’s a pause as Steve fumbles for the key in his trouser pocket; Bucky slips a hand into Steve’s jacket and fishes it out for him, reaching around his shoulder to unlock the door. Inside Bucky shrugs off his jacket and hangs it over the back of a chair before leaning against the arm of the couch and crossing his arms. Steve shuts the door quietly behind him.

‘It’s not wrong’ Bucky says softly, ‘doesn’t _feel_ wrong, does it?’

     ‘No’, says Steve quietly, colour rising in his cheeks as he thinks of Bucky curling around him at night, one strong arm pressed close against his flat stomach, and the way Bucky’s hair gets darker when it’s wet, the way it curls a little at the nape, ‘no it doesn’t, Buck’.

‘What’s wrong-’ he continues, and Steve’s just a little breathless with the earnest expression on his face, ‘is that you can’t be my fella’.

Steve’s face softens.

     ‘ _You got me_ , Buck. I’m here aren’t I?’

‘You know what I mean, Steve’. Steve does, of course he does, so he sighs and slides his jacket off carefully before attempting to lighten the mood.

     ‘I didn’t know you were such a sucker for getting hitched, Barnes’

‘The option’d be nice is all’ Bucky says shortly before looking down and unlacing his shoes.

     ‘It’s just for us though, isn’t it? This. Us’ Steve reasons, moving to sit on the couch, ‘it ain’t for the world. They don’t need to know’

‘Just shouldn’t matter if they did’ says Bucky, turning to face him.

     ‘Can’t change it, Buck’.

‘No’ he says, ‘but sometimes when we’re walking and I put my arm round you and I wanna kiss the side of your stupid face, I’d like to. You know? Just do it right there, with the sun shinin’ on us. And people lookin’ and not caring either way’.

     ‘The side of my face, huh? That’s real romantic, Buck’, but Steve’s smiling up at him like always.

‘Yeah’ says Bucky, grin like melting caramel, ‘cause everything else is just for us, like you said. But if I wanna take you dancing then I should be able to, right? And if I wanna-’

                ‘I hate dancing’

‘You’d dance with me’

                ‘Would I?’

‘Course you would’

Suddenly they’re both laughing, Bucky smiling easily in that way he has. That way that makes it hard to believe he’s got any troubles at all.

‘If I wanna do this’, he says, sliding off the arm of the couch and slumping down next to Steve before slinging his arm around Steve’s narrow shoulders and pressing his mouth to his ear, ‘then I’d like to’.

     ‘You after something, Barnes?’ Steve grins, warmth curling up his spine, 'cause if you do that in public, people'll definitely think you're after something'

‘Just you, Rogers’, says Bucky fuzzily, ‘just you’.

Steve turns his head and kisses Bucky full on the mouth softly before undoing the top few buttons of Bucky’s shirt and tucking his nose under Bucky’s jaw. When he breathes out Bucky’s skin tingles as the warm air grazes his throat. Air that’s passing easily through Steve’s lungs for a change.

     ‘Lotsa things I’d like to do too, Buck’ he murmurs gently against Bucky’s throat.

They sit like that, all gathered up together for a while, Steve nuzzling Bucky’s collarbone slowly with the side of his head, Bucky’s thumb stroking the top of Steve’s arm.

They sit like that til it gets real dark outside.

‘If I could I would, Stevie’ Bucky says suddenly, speaking softly into the longer hair at the crown of Steve’s head. ‘You gotta believe me. I woulda asked you such a long time ago, maybe when we were seventeen right after you told that Johnson kid where to stick it n he socked you right in the face. I thought I was gonna have to sit right on top of you to stop you going after the brothers too and getting punched six ways to Sunday. You and nobody’s army’

      ‘That was a long time ago, Buck’ Steve says gently.

‘In the summer’, Bucky murmurs, as if Steve hadn’t spoken at all, ‘I woulda asked then’.

 _God_ , thinks Steve.

     ‘I would’ve said yes’, he half-whispers; every foot step he’s ever taken launching himself after Bucky has been a _yes_ \- thousands of _yes’s_ pressed into the dirt streets of the city.

‘Course you would have’ says Bucky, all smooth without missing a beat.

Steve snorts and swats the top of Bucky’s thigh.

                ‘You’re such a jerk’

Bucky tips his head back against the top of the couch and closes his eyes; Steve imagines they’re sat on a park bench, with kids playing clumsily in the distance, people walking past, just leaning together, maybe holding hands. Nobody yells, nobody spits. Bucky doesn’t get his head smashed in for defending Steve’s honour. They just sit back and keep themselves to each other.

     ‘Maybe in the future’, Steve says quietly, sliding his hand under the nape of Bucky’s neck and pulling back to look at his face, ‘maybe in the future it’ll be ok’.

Bucky breathes out slowly, keeping his eyes closed.

‘Yeah, maybe when we’re a hundred years old’.

      ‘Bucky _come on_. I mean, things change right?’

‘Lotsa things stay the same too, pal.’

                ‘Geez, Buck, I’m gonna write to this sister of yours and complain about you being all morose’.

Bucky smiles a little at that.

‘I, Stephen Grant Rogers…’ he says, now grinning broadly at the ceiling, eyes shining.

Steve pokes him in the side and things disintegrate rapidly until Bucky’s manhandled Steve into his lap.

                ‘Already yours’ Steve laughs breathlessly, pressing their foreheads together and running a hand over the back of Bucky’s neck, ‘no need to bring middle names into it’.

Bucky puts his hands on Steve’s waist with something like reverence.

‘I like it’ he shrugs, ‘all of it together. What can I say?’

                ‘You turned out pretty damn square for a queer, is what _I_ say’

‘Mmhm’ Buckys mumbles against Steve’s throat.

                ‘ _James Buchanen Barnes_ ’ Steve grins down at him, ‘I bet they wouldn’t even punch that out on dog tags’.

‘It’s _Bucky_ to you anyways’ says Bucky, tongue suddenly pressed into that soft place where Steve’s jaw meets his neck.

                ‘It’s _Bucky_ to everyone’ Steve laughs, kissing the top of Bucky’s head, dark hair tickling his nose.

'Let's go to bed, Mr Rogers' Steve says, beaming like an idiot, 'couch is no place for this sort of thing'.

 

 

Bucky just looks up at him like he's the goddamn sun;

' _Steve_ ', he says thickly like its the most important thing in the world, ' _you gotta know how much'_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can find the 'spiritual successor' to this fic here: [How 'bout it](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2147904) :)


End file.
